Bite Your Tongue

4:45 A.M.
Korinne;;

The next few weeks flew by in a blur so fast it was almost cruel. Time seemed to be spitting in my face as it increased to almost supersonic speeds, pulling Thanksgiving Break closer and closer off of the horizon. Before I knew it, there was a week of no school looming in front of me, and though at first I wasn’t happy about how quickly it’d arrived, I soon became determined to make the best of it.

In a strange, awkward fashion, Brian and I had reverted back to our old method of behavior around each other. With all of our friends—except for Delia and Johnny—away for the week, visiting relatives, we’d been a little desperate for company. So we’d taken to hanging out at each other’s houses—with no mention whatsoever of our recent kiss. I still thought about it a little bit more than what was probably healthy, but at least now I could function like a normal person around him. And with Delia and Johnny around, it was even easier, because then I felt like we were just a group of friends hanging out and not two people who’d dated and were now being awkwardly and unfortunately thrown together in unexpected circumstances. But really, we’d just…gone back to normal. Well, what passed as normal for us. And that was fine with me. I was content for once, and I refused to let anything ruin this week of no school for me.

On Thanksgiving Day, however, I was awakened by the unpleasant surprise of my mother shoving some sort of kitchen utensil into my hands.

“Good morning, sunshine!”

Before I could respond, she’d flipped the light switch, stealing away all the lovely darkness.

“It burns,” I groaned, pulling the covers over my head.

“It’s just light, Korinne.”

The covers were snatched away.

“What the—”

“Up and at ‘em! We have lots to do today!”

I glanced at the clock. Its display showed a time too early for my brain to even compute.

“Mom…the sun isn’t even up yet…”

“I know, sweetie. But we have a lot of cooking to do before the party tonight!”

“Are you on crack?! The party doesn’t start until eight!”

She ignored me, heading for the door. “Be downstairs in fifteen minutes!”

I pressed my face into the sheets and mumbled a few choice curse words. Once I gathered enough energy to leave the bed, I abandoned the strange kitchen utensil and went to take a shower. I was pretty sure that I fell asleep several times during the process, but eventually I dried off, got dressed, and made it downstairs with my eyes still half-closed, utensil in hand. Elias was seated at the kitchen table, slumped over next to an untouched bowl of Lucky Charms.

“Mom’s gone off the deep end,” Elias mumbled as a greeting as I shuffled past him toward the coffeepot.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

I poured myself some coffee and put two strawberry Poptarts into the toaster. My mom joined us a minute later, wearing an apron.

“Are you two awake? Good. You’re going next door as soon as you finish eating.”

“Next door?”

“To the Haners’, silly,” she replied. “We’re going to do most of the cooking there, since their kitchen is much more well-equipped than ours. Don’t worry—Mrs. Haner will tell you what to do. We’ve got it all planned out. We’re having the actual party here, so I’ll be cleaning for most of the day, and…damn, that reminds me, I needed to pick up more Lysol…”

Still mumbling to herself, she left the room.

“Well,” I said, sluggishly reaching for a plate on which to put my breakfast, “This should be fun.”

Elias grunted in response.

Ten minutes later, we were standing on Brian’s doorstep, yawning and trying not to fall asleep. Mrs. Haner opened the door with a haste that seemed unnatural for this early hour. She looked awake and cheerful, and continued to zest the orange in her hands as she ushered us inside.

“Brian’s in the dining room. I assigned him to help with the side dishes, and there are a lot, so he could use some help…Oh, good, you brought the turkey baster!”

The early hour had stolen my reaction time from me, so I stared at her blankly for a few seconds.

“The what?”

She pointed to the strange utensil I’d forgotten I was carrying.

“Oh, that.”

Laughing, she pushed us gently in the right direction. “Nothing I’m having you do requires a lot of energy, so don’t worry. Hang in there. If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen, working on the turkey.”

Again, Elias grunted in response. When we reached the dining room, he leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor where he remained, motionless. I decided to let him relax for the time being and sought out Brian to see how he was handling the torture of being up so early. I found him on the opposite side of the room, behind a small table. He was also motionless, his head bent over a bowl of semi-mashed potatoes.

“Brian?”

He snorted and jumped, nearly dropping the bowl of potatoes. “I’m awake!”

“Sure you are.”

He blinked a few times, and his eyes focused on me.

“Wait, what are you doing here? It’s like…two in the morning, or something ridiculous like that…”

“Our moms are crazy.”

“Oh, yeah.”

I joined him on the floor. “Looks like you kind of gave up on those potatoes. Need some help?”

“Sure.”

We soon settled into a comfortable routine. After finishing the potatoes and handing them off to Mrs. Haner to cook, we woke Elias up, and the three of us started to work on some of the more labor-intensive side dishes. We tackled the sweet potatoes and the macaroni and cheese without any major problems, but once we fully comprehended how much food Mrs. Haner expected us to cook before the party, we decided to call for assistance. Delia and Maddie showed up soon after we’d called them, but Johnny didn’t even answer his phone—Brian said he was probably still sleeping, the lucky bastard. Still, the addition of two more sets of hands was greatly beneficial, and by noon, we’d completed the side dishes. Mrs. Haner was extremely pleased and granted us a few hours of freedom before we were told to return and start work on the desserts. We ended up wandering around the upper level of the house, looking for entertainment.

“Can I just like, go back to sleep now?” Elias asked, yawning.

“Sure, why not?”

Maddie linked her arm through his. “Unless you’d rather go make out somewhere.”

Instantly, Elias seemed wide awake. “See you guys later,” he said quickly.

The two of them vanished, leaving me, Brian, and Delia standing bored in the hallway.

“And then there were three,” said Delia solemnly.

We wandered around a bit more, talking about whatever came to mind.

“How’s the record going?” I asked.

“The what?”

“The CD…with the band…”

“Oh. Right. It’s going good, I guess.”

“Do you have any of the songs finished?”

“A few.”

“You should totally play one for us,” Delia said.

Brian laughed. “How exactly am I supposed to do that? There’s no point if only one-fifth of the band is present.”

“Zacky told me you guys were working on some sort of piano song…and you have a piano, right?”

“Well, yeah, but Matt’s not here to sing, so—”

“Don’t you have a recording of his voice to practice with?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’ve only ever played it for the guys before,” he said shyly.

“Oh, come on. Please?”

“Yeah, please?”

Sighing, he agreed. “Fine.”

We followed him down the hall and into a room I’d never noticed before. Inside the dimly lit space was nothing but a gorgeous black grand piano and an abundance of cream-colored carpeting.

“I didn’t know you had a piano,” I said.

“It’s my mom’s. She used to play in college but she just kind of…grew out of it, I guess.”

“And Brian’s apparently inherited her talent,” Delia added, taking a seat on the floor. “Zacky referred to him as a ‘sexy piano beast’.”

“Remind me to thank him later.” Brian retrieved a small CD player from underneath the piano. He opened it, glanced at the CD that was inside, and closed it. Then he sat down at the bench and ran his fingers arbitrarily over the keys.

“I just got the whole thing memorized, so if I fuck it up, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry. We won’t make fun of you.”

He gave us a grateful smile and gestured to the CD player. “Could one of you press play when I tell you to?”

“Sure.”

He took a few seconds to position his hands over certain keys, looked back at me, then nodded.

“This is called, uh, Warmness On the Soul.”

I pressed the ‘play’ button. For a few seconds, there was just static, and then the steady ticking of a metronome, and then, finally, Brian started to play. And over the next four minutes that the song encompassed, I was pretty sure I didn’t breathe at all. Everything about the song—from Matt’s voice to Brian’s piano playing to the rest of the band’s extra accompaniment near the end—was absolutely perfect; everything about it seemed to dive into my chest and transform my heart into nothing but a warm, functionless ball of mush. It didn’t matter that the song hadn’t been written about me—from listening to the words, I guessed that Matt had written it about Stevie—but with Brian playing the piano, I could pretend that it had. I could pretend that he’d written the song for me and that he was playing for me and that Zoe didn’t exist and that we were still together, that he was still mine. I constructed such a sick, detailed fantasy that when the song ended, abruptly dumping me back into the cold waters of reality, it took every ounce of focus I possessed to keep from bursting into tears.

“Holy shit, Brian,” Delia said. “That was amazing.”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? I messed up like, twenty million times.”

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t notice.” She rubbed her arms. “Jesus. I’ve got goosebumps.”

“Me too,” I said quietly. I didn’t trust my voice to be steady at a higher volume.

“Did Matt write that about Stevie?” asked Delia.

“Mostly. We collaborated on a few parts, though.”

“So…you could interpret it as being meant for different people?” I wondered, before I could stop myself.

“Yeah. That’s what we were going for.”

“It’s beautiful,” Delia concluded.

For a few seconds, we sat in silence, the aftermath of the song lingering in the air like the smell of powerful perfume. Then the tranquility was shattered by Mrs. Haner’s voice shouting at us from somewhere downstairs.

“It’s dessert time!” she yelled.

“It’s only been half an hour,” Brian observed, glancing at his watch. “I thought you said we had a few hours!” he shouted back.

“Yes, well, that was before I decided to make a few extra desserts! Come on!”

Delia rolled her eyes and immediately followed orders. I, however, hung back, wondering how I could pose the question that was plaguing my mind without sounding like a complete hopeless freak.

Brian started to leave. “Come on. I think my mom’s slowly approaching the peak of insanity.”

“Wait,” I said, standing up and grabbing his arm.

He turned to face me, and his sudden closeness momentarily wiped my memory of what I’d planned to say.

“Yeah?”

“Um…” I took a few seconds to regain my composure. “The parts of the song that you wrote…were they about Zoe?”

Something in his eyes softened. One of his hands cupped my face, and I stopped breathing.

“No, Korinne,” he said slowly. “They weren’t.”

Then his lips were on mine in the softest of kisses, and the outside world fell away. My heart thudded loudly in my chest, butterflies fluttered around spastically in my stomach, and tingles shot through every nerve I possessed. When he pulled away, all I could do was stare at him in shock. I wanted to kiss him again, but as I moved to do so, we were interrupted.

“Brian! Korinne! The chocolate cake isn’t going to make itself!” Mrs. Haner shrieked.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Brian muttered.

I laughed quietly. In silence, we began the trek downstairs to avoid being yelled at again. I stared at Brian out of the corner of my eye as we walked, and despite being infinitely confused about mostly everything, there was one thing I knew for sure. It was a truth so clear to me that it had practically wrapped itself in Christmas lights and started jumping up and down inside my head, the truth that I yearned for Brian in ways I didn’t even know how to explain. I knew that I wanted to be around him at the party. I knew I wanted more.

Even if I didn’t specifically know what ‘more’ would entail.

+++

8:42 P.M.

There were officially way too many people in my house.

When my mom had first mentioned the word ‘party’, I thought she’d meant ‘a small gathering of close friends’. Not ‘a collection of every single person she’d ever come into contact with’. The house was absolutely packed, so crowded that I was pretty sure we had created some sort of fire hazard. A combination of classical music and those annoying songs that were constantly on the radio was blasting from enormous speakers that had been set up in the living room. In the kitchen, the food we’d spent all day cooking was set up, buffet style. The guests—which included a large number of my mom’s coworkers, a bunch of Mrs. Haner’s friends, and a multitude of long-estranged family members—had formed their own groups in which to enjoy the party. A rather large group had taken over the dining room to have a sit-down dinner, several others were gathered around various TVs in different parts of the house to watch movies, and others were simply meandering about, waving the drinks in their hands and swaying slightly with the music. It was utter bedlam, basically.

After glimpsing the volume of people in attendance, I’d watched the evening unfold from my hiding spot in the kitchen. Surprisingly, no one seemed to think it was odd that I was simply standing there, even though I was wearing the too-short black and white dress my mom had purchased for me. It was way more revealing than what I usually wore—Delia had politely informed me that I kind of looked like a hooker—but it looked good otherwise, so I’d worn it to avoid making my mother unhappy. I didn’t know why I’d bothered, though—she was already acting like she’d imbibed half of the alcohol in the house.

Sighing, I decided to go and search for entertainment. Delia was out of the question, since she’d been roped into doing handstands and other things to entertain the guests’ children. Elias and Maddie were probably off doing their usual activities, and despite seeing Johnny arrive, I had no idea where the hell he’d gone. That left Brian as my only other option, which was fine with me. I just hoped that he hadn’t started to regret kissing me earlier.

I took a few steps out of the kitchen before being accosted by my mother, who was laughing at apparently nothing in particular and attempting to dance while carrying two bottle of champagne.

“Korinne!” she exclaimed, seizing my hands. “Dance with me!”

“Um, no thanks. I was just going to—”

“Have a drink, then!” She shoved the champagne into my hands.

“Mom…I’m underage…”

Snorting, she waved her hand.

“It’s the holiday! Have some fun! Give some thanks!”

With that, she shimmied away. I stared after her for a few seconds before coming to the conclusion that my mother had gone completely nuts. A minute later, Elias appeared next to me, with Maddie close behind.

“Please tell me you’re going to share that,” he said, gesturing to the bottles in my hand.

I handed him one. “Drink responsibly.”

Grinning, he uncorked the bottle and downed nearly half of it in several huge gulps.

“Fuck responsibility!”

We laughed. He uncorked the other bottle for me and I took a small sip, determined not to make a fool out of myself.

“So,” Maddie said. “Why are you over here all by yourself? You should find some cute guy and go dance.”

“Maddie,” I said slowly. “Ninety percent of the guys here are over forty.”

“Oh. Right. But still…you could probably find a cutie if you tried hard enough.”

“Speaking of cuties, have you guys seen Brian?”

“Nah. But that guy over there is pretty cute,” Maddie pointed out.

I had to agree. “Yeah, he is,” I said, before taking another sip of champagne.

Elias followed my gaze. “I think that’s our cousin.”

Champagne sprayed from my mouth as if from a geyser.

“Oh my God! Ew!”

“I was kidding,” Elias said, laughing.

“Asshole.”

I shoved him and set off to continue my search for Brian. It took me about half an hour to look throughout the entire house, and to my disappointment, I didn’t see him. Frowning, I persevered, thanks mostly in part to the champagne. When I’d finished the first bottle, I’d found another, and though I knew I probably shouldn’t be drinking so much, the comfortable buzz I’d worked up sure made things a hell of a lot more enjoyable.

Once I was sure he wasn’t anywhere in my house, I decided to see if he was, for some reason, at his house. I went outside, and before I’d even started to trace the familiar route next door, I heard the sound of music coming from somewhere on the beach. I followed the noise and my eyes soon fell upon Brian’s figure standing with his feet in the water. I let out an elated giggle and approached him. As I got closer, I could see a CD player on the sand several feet away, next to a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries and a bottle of wine.

“Greetings!” I exclaimed.

Brian jumped and whirled around. The panicked expression on his face fell away when he saw that it was me.

“Jesus. I thought you were a serial killer.”

“Nope, sorry.” I sat down next to the bottle of wine, which was nearly empty. “Whatcha doin’?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you drunk?”

“Are you drunk?” I pointed accusingly at him. “You’re the one with wine!”

He started laughing. “Korinne, you have a bottle of champagne.”

“Oh…right.” I looked at the half-empty bottle and took a few more sips. “But, you know, I’m not drunk. ‘Cause I told myself I’d be smart, and all that…and I’m not drunk! ‘Cause…I’m just not…”

Still laughing, he sat down in the water. “You’re funny.”

“Hey, you’re drunk too, mister.”

“Yeah, but at least I can still function properly.”

He got up, probably with the intention of reaching for a strawberry, and immediately fell down. Both of us dissolved into giggles.

“Fail,” I said, laughing and pointing at him again.

“Shut up!”

When I was finally able to stop laughing, I reached for a strawberry and bit into it.

“So why weren’t you at the party?”

“Too many people.”

I nodded in agreement.

Brian reached for a strawberry as well. “Why are you here?”

“I missed you.”

His eyes grew wide. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“…Cool.”

We worked our way through the plate of strawberries in a matter of minutes. I reached for the last one at the same time Brian did, and we both looked competitively at each other.

“Oh, no,” he said. “My beach, my strawberry.”

“What?” I said, laughing.

“We’re on my beach, so I get the last strawberry.”

“It’s not your beach, it’s California’s beach.”

“Yeah, but I’m sitting on it, so it’s mine.”

“Whatever. You’re silly.” I snatched the strawberry off of the plate and got to my feet as quickly as possible. “Victory!” I screeched, and began running away.

“No!”

I’d barely gone a few feet before he caught up to me and wrestled the strawberry out of my hands. Then he took off running towards his house, and I followed, determined to retrieve the damn strawberry. By the time I reached his house, he had already disappeared inside. Everything was dark and quiet; the only sounds were my breathing and the gentle hum of the refrigerator.

“Brian?!” I called. “Where are youuu?!”

I thought I heard a noise coming from the hallway, so I went in that direction. I kept stumbling over myself, and I had to hold on to the wall to keep from falling over.

“Brian!” I shouted, pausing in between two closed doors. “Are you in here?”

Suddenly, there was the sound of a door being flung open, and Brian hurled himself out of a nearby room.

“Rawr!”

I screamed and fell backwards into the wall. Brian burst into loud laughter.

“Fuck you!” I shrieked, laughing through my terror.

“You should’ve seen your face, that was hilarious—”

I noticed that he still had the strawberry in his hand, and since he was distracted by his laughter, I was able to grab the strawberry and run halfway up the stairs before he’d even noticed that I was gone.

“Hey!”

I paused briefly to stick out my tongue at him, and then I kept running.

“Give me back my strawberry!”

“Never!”

He chased me down the upstairs hallway, and I dived quickly into the first room I saw. I realized that it was his bedroom after only a few seconds and attempted to dash across the hall to the bathroom, but he stood blocking the doorway.

“Strawberry,” he said, holding out his hand.

I shook my head and shoved the strawberry into my mouth. Most of the chocolate had melted off by now, but it still tasted pretty good.

Brian started pouting. “Buttsucker.”

I nearly choked on the bit of strawberry I was chewing. “What did you call me?”

“Buttsucker.”

“Is that an insult?”

“Yes!”

Laughter bubbled from my mouth like water from hottub jets. “Um, alrighty. I still win, though.”

He pouted some more, and it made him look adorably cute, so I decided to try and cheer him up. I wrapped my arms around him in a giant hug and apologized over and over.

“It’s okay, Korinne,” he said after about the tenth time. “It’s just a strawberry.”

“Yeah, but now I feel bad…”

“It’s fine.”

I looked up at him to see if he was lying.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

His face moved closer to mine, and the chiseled structure completely distracted me.

“You’re cute, you know that?”

He chuckled and pushed a bit of hair out of my face. “You’re pretty cute yourself.”

I was suddenly struck by the brutal urge to kiss him, so I did. He kissed back, his lips tasting of wine and chocolate and strawberries.

“You taste good,” I mumbled against his lips.

“Shh.”

His arms encircled my waist; we opened our mouths to each other. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I barely registered the backwards movement of my legs as they stepped towards the bed, with Brian’s following closely. Soft, gentle kisses became hard, demanding ones; where hands had merely rested they now grabbed at flesh and fabric. A rush of cool air met my body as my dress was tugged over my head, and to compensate, I quickly relieved Brian of his shirt and pressed myself against his warm skin.

He let out a contented sigh. “Korinne,” he whispered, like my name was married into his breathing.

His hands went into my hair, tilting my head back slightly, and when he started kissing my neck, I was lost.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that whatever we were doing, whatever this was leading up to, probably wasn’t a good idea. But that thought was quickly beaten into submission by the rest of the thoughts in my head, which started spinning as soon as I landed on the bed. Brian fell with me. The shock of his body on top of mine sent a gasp flying from my lips, a gasp that was quickly silenced by another feverish kiss. What was left of our clothes vanished so quickly it was like someone had simply pressed a button and whisked them off of our bodies. Then I could feel him, all of him, pressing against me, hips against hips; chest against chest. My heart leaped around in excited skips and jumps as we locked eyes. There was a question in the warm brown depths, and my body answered for me—a resounding yes.

I just wanted him. So I gave a slight nod, and he kissed me.

And then he gave me exactly what I wanted.